From tasering the elderly to gross misconduct in a major sexual assault trial, this week has revealed massive flaws within our justice system, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
Category: Informed Comment
In Australia, it has also been particularly galling to see the prospect that sharing such confidential information – notably in terms of tax policies – will see no PwC employee or member of management spend time mournfully gazing from a prison cell. That prospect is what faces Richard Boyle, the Australian Taxation Office’s whistleblower who exposed the predatory conduct of its debt collecting practices with tigerish courage.
Source: Rogue Consultants: PwC, Tax Evasion and Getting Clients – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The latest data shows murder rates continue to fall worldwide, but with some countries defying the trend, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: A decade of declining violence worldwide, except in the USA and Latin America
If Russia is blamed for Trump’s election, we avoid the unpleasant reality of our failed democratic institutions and decaying empire. We avoid facing the inevitable rise of a Christianized fascism borne out of widespread impoverishment, rage, despair and abandonment.
This is appropriately revealing. Supine, unquestioning, and moving between the statuses of vassal and satellite, Canberra sees its military outsourced, governed and policed by Washington, its strategic and operational goals dictated by the Pentagon, its relevance as a Pacific outpost measured only by its utility in defending US interests. Its role in any future war in the region alongside the United States, however foolish and bloody, is assured. What matters, however, is that the one pushing the trigger of intervention will not be an Australian.
However, much like the looking-glass world of Eduardo Galeano, reality appeared to reflect the exact opposite of that narrative as Saul Holt KC, acting for the defence, methodically devastated Ms Keys’ credibility and, with sparing, yet unerringly precise brushstrokes, illustrated the absolute incompetence of Mr Miller’s investigation, as reported by MWM on Wednesday last.
Satire, Truth in Humour, Irony, Punching up,
Now before the fact checkers get stuck into the headline, I’d like to withdraw it and admit that the Coalition did not leave a trillion dollar debt, it was, in fact, a mere $889,000,000,000. However, headlines aren’t about accuracy; they’re either clickbait or some sub-editor’s way of making some pun that is neither funny nor actually connected to the topic.
Far too often, government departments and its agencies deny Freedom of Information requests without good reason. It leads to unnecessary delays, costs, and the withholding of information that the public deserves to know. What’s the scam?
Source: Playing chicken to the detriment of democracy and cost to the taxpayer – Michael West
World military spending has reached a new record high of $2.24 trillion in 2022, according to new data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). That’s up 3.7% since the previous year, including the steepest increase among European nations since the end of the Cold War over 30 years ago.
Source: The US Still Spends More on Its Military Than 144 Nations Combined – CounterPunch.org
Friends, we do not have the luxury of waiting 18 months until the 2024 election. The danger is now.
Source: The Danger Is Now. We Must Stop Trumpian Fascism. | The Smirking Chimp
Facts
Shane Drumgold SC told the ACT Inquiry into the police cover-up attempt of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins that he believes 11 of the 12 jurors would have found Bruce Lehrmann guilty of raping Brittany Higgins, as per the below video, and the one he believes would not was the same juror who caused the trial being aborted.
“Many who suffered RoboDebt are getting $350 per week while Campbell is receiving $17,100 per week. Every day she sits in Defence is a day of insult to those who suffered from the RoboDebt scheme. Rightly, there is anger in the community. Albanese must act.” (MWM)
Kathryn Campbell is well known in the parklands and on the footpaths where some of Australia’s most disadvantaged live. Witnesses at the RoboDebt Royal Commission made her the face of the governance scandal. But in stark contrast to those affected by RoboDebt, she now sits in a plum job inside the Department of Defence on her old $900K salary. Former senator Rex Patrick examines the ins and outs.
Source: Kathryn Campbell – from RoboDebt ignominy to plum Defence job with the PM’s help – Michael West
Where has all the water gone and what is being done?
Even in the face of such climatic disturbance affecting that most vital of resources for life, countries will still find the miraculous energy and industry to wage war or at least prepare for it, all the while continuing to despoil environments. In time, the proposition that war will even be waged over water supply is a distinct, disturbing possibility.
Source: Aqueous Matters: Europe’s Water Crisis – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The citizen’s starter kit to understanding the new global information cartel.
Until World War II, America had no permanent arms manufacturing industry. Now it did, and this new sector, Eisenhower said, was building up around itself a cultural, financial, and political support system accruing enormous power. This “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience,” he said, adding:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes… Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The Robodebt saga was not the Public Service’s finest moment. The recent release of the National Cabinet minutes confirms that the problems of secrecy, obfuscation and ignoring legal advice are widespread. Rex Patrick explains.
Source: Robodebt Cancer – has our public service become the secret service? – Michael West
All these trends point to a new progressive America — in about 20 years.
Twenty years is a long time, of course. These trends have already ignited an anti-democracy backlash — especially from Americans who are older, whiter, straighter, without college degrees, and mostly male — that is, from people susceptible to authoritarian strongmen peddling conspiracy theories and stoking hatred.
The Republican Party knows it’s doomed unless it radically restricts voting, or goes full throttle and wholly adopts Trumpian fascism.
So, my friends, the stakes ahead could not be higher.
Source: Why a New Progressive Era in America Is Likely — In About 20 Years | The Smirking Chimp
AUSTRALIA HAS BEGUN its long, slow climb out of the sewers of sleaze and corruption now a new government committed to integrity has replaced the grimy and incompetent Coalition.
Source: Australia finally joins global efforts to stop terrorists getting easy finance
If only the media would cover the persecution of Julian Assange with the same the same zeal as the wedding of shock-jock Kyle Sandilands; and the controversial attendance of Albo. At this time, when Jackie-O turned up late to the wedding, Michael West reports on World Press Freedom Day.
Source: World Press Freedom Day! But for Julian Assange, David McBride, where is the freedom? – Michael West
On a more serious note, another Biden administration, flavoured by the bouquet garni of error, is likely to make more wars, not fewer, likely. In the Indo-Pacific, a containment strategy of China is being pursued with militaristic glee, with a bewitched Australia supplying the strategic real estate in a policy of forward defence. In Ukraine, a proxy war with Russia continues to be waged, drawing NATO and the US into ever closer conflict. Biden’s Blunderland does not promise to be pretty, let alone an entertaining place.
Source: Rerunning Biden’s Blunderland – » The Australian Independent Media Network
While no threat from China exists, media propagandists are trying to ignite a war the likes of which we’ve never seen. John Pilger reminds us that we need to raise our voices before it’s too late.
Source: JOHN PILGER: Danger of war exists if we don’t speak up now
Those such as Julian Assange, who challenge the stratocracy, who expose its crimes and suicidal folly, are ruthlessly persecuted. But the war state harbors within it the seeds of its own destruction. It will cannibalize the nation until it collapses. Before then, it will lash out, like a blinded cyclops, seeking to restore its diminishing power through indiscriminate violence. The tragedy is not that the U.S. war state will self-destruct. The tragedy is that we will take down so many innocents with us.
Source: The Giant Sucking Sound of War and US Militarism | The Smirking Chimp
The war industry, a state within a state, disembowels the nation, stumbles from one military fiasco to the next, strips us of civil liberties and pushes us towards suicidal wars with Russia and China.
Silences filled with a consensus of propaganda contaminate almost everything we read, see and hear. War by media is now a key task of so-called mainstream journalism.
However described, the shabby treatment of Julian Assange never ceases to startle. While he continues to suffer in Belmarsh prison awaiting the torments of an interminable legal process, more material is coming out showing the way he was spied upon while staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Of late, the Spanish daily El País…
Source: Foiled Escape: UC Global, the CIA and Julian Assange – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Informed Comment
His kids are teenagers now. They sometimes get things wrong. Minchin is nearly 50. He sometimes get things wrong, too. He says: “We try to get things wrong together.” It’s probably the best that any of us can do.
Source: Tim Minchin: ‘Politics affects my mental health … I feel gaslit’ | Tim Minchin | The Guardian
It’s a very funny thing. In the US, the provision of services in such industries as security and intelligence is outsourced in a sprawling complex of contractors and subcontractors. In Australia, the entire military and security establishment is outsourced to Washington’s former mandarins, many of them earning a pile in consultancy fees. This, perhaps, is what Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles means when he talks about the Australian Defence Force moving “beyond interoperability to interchangeability.”
Source: Australia: Outsourced to the US Military Establishment – » The Australian Independent Media Network
With corporate criminality essentially unchecked worldwide, Dr Evan Jones diagnoses democracy as an ‘unachievable work in progress’.
Melanie Mitchell, an academic who knows a thing or two about the field, was bemused and tweeted as much. “Senator, I’m an AI researcher. Your description of ChatGPT is dangerously misinformed. Every sentence is incorrect. I hope you will learn more about how this system actually works, how it was trained, and what its limitations are.”
Source: Anxiety as Socialism: AI Moratorium Fantasies – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Under FOI, I requested Commissioner Woolcott’s briefing, minutes and talking points associated with the March 8 bureaucratic talk fest. Woolcott, a Coalition appointment (and former staffer to Andrew Peacock and Chief of Staff to Alexander Downer) retires in 4 months, has refused access to the documents he holds, claiming it’s not in the public interest to release them.
Source: Robodebt Cover-Up: documents on repairing Australian Public Service buried – Michael West
It doesn’t get any less self-reliant and sovereign than just handing over your nation’s military to a more powerful nation with a “There ya go mate, use it however you reckon’s fair.” You really could not come up with a more egregious abdication of national sovereignty if you tried.
And yet Australia’s prime minister babbles about sovereignty and self-reliance while doing exactly that.
Just annex Australia and make it the 51st state already. At least that way Australians would get a pretend vote in America’s fake elections.
Developments in the U.S. courts concerning the Murdoch media empire have implications well beyond the USA, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: Latest evidence for Turnbull thesis good news for battered Americans
The Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, has proclaimed the AUKUS submarine program is a national building endeavour when, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Rex Patrick pulls apart the Admiral’s claim.
Source: AUKUS submarines “nation building” says Admiral. No they’re not, says Rex Patrick – Michael West
Even though their traitorous behavior has brought America to the cusp of civil war — including an attack on the U.S. Capitol — they’ll continue to do whatever is necessary (short of defaming a deep-pocketed voting machine company) to keep the money flowing in their direction.
Source: The Settlement: “Accountability” Is Just Another Cost of Doing Business | The Smirking Chimp
What is going on in Sudan?
Source: Sudan crisis Explained: What’s behind the latest Fighting and its Roots in the Past
The case that starts today raises a fundamental question: Will there be a penalty for profiting from the spread of dangerous misinformation?
Think of the poison Fox has knowingly been pumping into America as analogous to the poison cigarette manufacturers pumped into Americans’ lungs. Part of the remedy for the cigarette poison has been warning disclosures on every pack. Why not an analogous remedy for Fox News’s poison?
Source: What’s the Perfect Punishment for Fox News? | The Smirking Chimp
The Defence Department has outdone itself with the AUKUS submarine project. In Paul Keating’s words, “it’s the worst deal in all history”. That’s not just because of the staggering $386 billion price tag, but because of the form the program is to take. Former submariner Rex Patrick looks at the most astonishingly irrational part of the announcement.
Source: Rex Patrick on AUKUS submarines: “an astonishingly bad deal” – Michael West
A Propagandist disguised as a Think TankThe ASPI
The think tank continues to enjoy the patronage of powerful benefactors with deep pockets, and it is going nowhere; but, in some respects, the game is up for ASPI. Its current leadership is being pushed into the model of the communist state it so reviles. Shameless propaganda when it can get away with it, and secretly meeting behind closed doors when it can’t.
Source: The incredible shrinking ASPI – Pearls and Irritations
In opposition, Federal Labor spoke up long and loud in favour of government transparency. Now they are in government, their voice on this has gone rather quiet.
There’s already been quite a bit of backsliding once Labor bums got comfortable again in ministerial chairs. One thing’s for sure now; there’s now a court case on-foot that goes directly to the credibility of Mark Dreyfus as much as it goes to the credibility of government. I’d like to think he’ll back transparency, but after he abandoned whistleblowers Richard Boyle and David McBride, I’m just not sure. We’ll find out soon.
Can a Prime Minister use a Cabinet reshuffle to sweep government dirt under the carpet? Rex Patrick reports on rorts and transparency.
Source: Rex v the A-G: will Labor keep Liberal dirt under the carpet? – Michael West
I don’t believe Trump alone is responsible for the birth of modern Republican fascism, but he has legitimized and encouraged the vicious rancor that has led much of the GOP into election-denying fascism.
Source: Is the GOP Becoming the American Fascist Party? | The Smirking Chimp
Legendary investigative reporter Wayne Barrett didn’t live to see Trump’s downfall — but he knew it was coming
One can learn much about political dealmaking in New York in the late 20th century in “Without Compromise: The Brave Journalism That First Exposed Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and the American Epidemic of Corruption,” a collection of Barrett’s investigative article published after his death in 2017, prefaced with essays by people who knew and worked with him.
“Without Compromise,” stands as a fitting tribute to the work Barrett did to inform the public in the city he loved. To be fair to his work the monument could perhaps be placed outside City Hall, since Barrett exposed corruption on both sides of the political spectrum, which in the New York of the ’70s and ’80s was dominated by Democrats. (Including Donald J. Trump, at that time.) But if anyone wishes to honor Wayne Barrett while sticking it to the guy who has spent his life enriching himself at the public’s expense while calling the free press “the enemy of the people,” that spot on Fifth Avenue would be perfect.
Source: The man who saw Trump coming: Wayne Barrett warned us decades ago | Salon.com
Progressives win a majority in the Supreme Court.
What’s happening today in Manhattan’s criminal court is important. Holding a former president accountable to the rule of law is essential.
But what’s happening today in Wisconsin may prove as, if not more, important to the future of American democracy. It will either strengthen or weaken the levers of self-government in a state where those levers could make all the difference.
One way or another, America and the rest of the world will pay a terrible price for the Trump presidency.
Source: The Trump presidency has brought on the self-destruction of Western civilisation: FLASHBACK 2020
Recent charges against Donald Trump have split observers worldwide, lawmakers in the USA, members of the Republican Party and even Trump’s family, as Alan Austin reports.
Source: Donald Trump’s upcoming trials divide America and the world
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